This week has been so busy. I have had so many cheer practices, school, work but at least I got in my galentine’s with my girls.
He said
After a very busy weekend, last weekend with the Ontario Championships for Cheer, this weekend was thankfully less busy. Sure, with the Battle at the Border and Border Showdown next weekend in Niagara Falls, there was still lots of Cheer practice in Emelia’s life this week. But, after all the practices this week, we arrived at this weekend with no where to be which was a nice break. And Danielle smartly had extended her Family Day long weekend, into a longer weekend booking Friday off work too. I had to work, but I was off both Saturday and today. Emelia was the only one of all us that came into a weekend rolling through a five straight day string of shifts at Silver City.
This week most of Southwestern Ontario was blasted with snow all week which definitely brought its challenges. It started Wednesday night and pretty much continued in waves throughout the weekend. Thursday school was closed much to Emelia’s delight. But the big added activity this week was shovelling the driveway between the storms. By the weekend it was pointed out that we had received more snow in the last fourteen days than we did all last winter. And Danielle’s back which has been buggered up by the mixture of wet and heavy snow that covered our driveway can confirm. The biggest blast came starting Saturday and through the day on Sunday. While it was forecasted to stop around noon yesterday, it was still going when I left work. When I got home, it was right back at the driveway with the shovels.
All this weather has got both Danielle and I pining for the warmer weather and when we can get the trailer ready for the season. Officially we are 73 days out from when that can happen but with the weather right now it feels like 300 days or more away. I keep looking at the forecast in hopes for a positive change but not liking what I see. It’s also looking a lot like my streak of getting in at least one outside ride every month of the year is at risk for February. I might have to eventually breakdown and get the mountain bike pedals sorted in order to make the February ride a reality—we will see. Suffice it to say, after this week, we’re all feeling done with this winter.
Emelia is well into her last semester of high school and building a good routine around keeping on top of her new course load, social life and part time job. Weird to think that she will be starting university in a mere 6 months, so we’re doing our best not to get whiplash as it goes by and soak it all in. She likes her course load this semester and is excited about her future. We will see how much trailer time we will get with her summer as I am sure she will be busy with all her ‘last summer before university’ things. But, by the same token we are blessed with a kid that wants to live at home and not leave the city for her university start which makes the journey all the more easier for her parents. We’ll happily give her own space to live, and let her take over the basement for that tradeoff, any day!
She said
With Ontario’s out of the way the cheer teams are already in full focus for the next competition. Although Ontario’s is a huge competition this comp this weekend is the one that Emelia has been really focused on. As we are getting closer and closer to the end of competition season Emelia is trying desperately to check off some much wanted goals in her cheer career. For Emelia her big one is to get a bid to Canadian Finals. This is an invite only for the top teams to compete at Nationals. This has been a goal of Emelia’s for years, her first full cheer comp season her team got REALLY close to a bid missing it by one spot. Since that day she has been focused on getting one. For Cheer Strike the two day competition this weekend the second day the competition is called Showdown and at that competition it is different than her other ones. At this competition you are up against all the levelled teams so in Emelia’s case that is 20 level 3 teams and 5 level 3 non-tumble teams. It is going to be a hard fought competition but the coaches and even one of the owners feels that their routine if they hit it clean has a real solid chance of getting one of those bids.
For Emelia every competition is a bit more bitter sweet, she knows that next year will be very different. We have agreed that once she goes to university that she would need to cut back on cheer and if the gym has another adult team she could be on that team but that team does not go to nearly as many competitions. So her drive is strong, there are a lot of athletes that are as driven as she is and we are really hoping for that they will get one of those bids this weekend.
Cheer wasn’t the only thing that was keeping Emelia busy this week, she had a very long stretch at work, working 5 days straight. With all her cheer comps, her birthday, exams and other obligations she had not been working as much over the last few weeks and she found out last week how little she gets paid when she barely works. So the motivator of money certainly made this stretch a bit easier to take. But for Emelia it wasn’t all work and training. The social focus for her all week was her galentine’s party with about 20 of her closest girl friends. By all accounts the girls had a blast. Emelia came home with lots of stories and a smile on her face.
For the rest of this week we will be doing our best to keep all of us healthy, get Emelia to training and prep for another busy weekend of cheer, cheer and more cheer.